BioWare
Since my move to Edmonton I have been able to get a taste of a couple projects at BioWare, but most of my time has been spend on Mass Effect 2. After having worked on it for almost a year I must say I am very excited about this game! It has been quite the ride so far, I again joined a team in their final year of the project. Still, this gave me plenty of time to build new levels and help with others where I could.
Since there are so many designers on the Mass Effect team, we are split into small groups of 3 level designers + their artists and QA. One of these designers is the senior one, whom is responsible for dividing the work; mentor and oversee the work of the two junior designers. This is how I landed my first position as a lead. Even if it is only over 2 people, it adds quite a bit of work on top of making levels. Having to manage many more levels and making sure they are all build in the right way. So far I have really enjoyed learning how to teach and stimulate the junior designers.
It has also been very interesting to learn the design methods of BioWare. As a company that is so focused on story telling, they have many different stages of level building. BioWare's history is the role playing game; where the writers came up with the story; the artists build the worlds and the technical designers scripted the enemies and bosses using scripting languages. Only when moving to the Unreal engine did they create the job position of level designer. The level designer being responsible for controlling the pacing of the combat and geometry. Trying to bring all elements together into one smooth experience.
On the Mass Effect 2 team this transition to a more level design centric style is pretty much completed. Level designers don't just script enemies anymore, they now have to place cover, break sight lines for combat and work much closer with their artists to finalize collision; performance and streaming of levels.
Overall the technical designers have done a great job learning these new systems, from the technical aspects of the Unreal Engine 3 to the intricacies of cover style gameplay. Combine this with the story and cinematics from the writers and cini-designers; the amazing art; sound and music and you have quite the level in the end.
I hope that the players will be just as enthusiastic about this game when they get their hands on it as I am right now. I cannot wait to plunk down on my chair and play through the whole game as a consumer. :)
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Since there are so many designers on the Mass Effect team, we are split into small groups of 3 level designers + their artists and QA. One of these designers is the senior one, whom is responsible for dividing the work; mentor and oversee the work of the two junior designers. This is how I landed my first position as a lead. Even if it is only over 2 people, it adds quite a bit of work on top of making levels. Having to manage many more levels and making sure they are all build in the right way. So far I have really enjoyed learning how to teach and stimulate the junior designers.
It has also been very interesting to learn the design methods of BioWare. As a company that is so focused on story telling, they have many different stages of level building. BioWare's history is the role playing game; where the writers came up with the story; the artists build the worlds and the technical designers scripted the enemies and bosses using scripting languages. Only when moving to the Unreal engine did they create the job position of level designer. The level designer being responsible for controlling the pacing of the combat and geometry. Trying to bring all elements together into one smooth experience.
On the Mass Effect 2 team this transition to a more level design centric style is pretty much completed. Level designers don't just script enemies anymore, they now have to place cover, break sight lines for combat and work much closer with their artists to finalize collision; performance and streaming of levels.
Overall the technical designers have done a great job learning these new systems, from the technical aspects of the Unreal Engine 3 to the intricacies of cover style gameplay. Combine this with the story and cinematics from the writers and cini-designers; the amazing art; sound and music and you have quite the level in the end.
I hope that the players will be just as enthusiastic about this game when they get their hands on it as I am right now. I cannot wait to plunk down on my chair and play through the whole game as a consumer. :)
Labels: leveldesign
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posted by Checker at
11:15 PM
